


The Only Reason I Held On To You Was Because I Felt I Had Nothing Left.

by destinae



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Don't Read This If You Want To Smile, M/M, Post-Uprising, Whatever The Opposite Of A Fix-It Fic Is, no one wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 17:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14110269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinae/pseuds/destinae
Summary: All heretics die a martyr to their cause.





	1. I. ATLAS BORE THE WEIGHT OF THE SKY AND STILL HE SHRUGGED.

Hermann was brought up as a child of reason and ambition. 

 

From an early age, he was taught that even the most faithful man had to act before a miracle could happen.

  
  


Maybe that was why he believed that Newt would endure this.

 

Newt was no martyr, not even to Hermann. 

 

He was the heretic.

 

For the time being, Newt was bound to unyielding metal in a dimly lit room. He was fed, but not well-- while Hermann hadn’t seen Newt since he’d arrived at the facility, he saw what meals been taken into the holding room. 

 

They were nothing like the meals they’d shared at the Shatterdome.

 

The meals they’d shared-- rushed and desperate, silent overtures of forks scraping metal trays as the duo took the five minutes of time that they had each day to scarf down whatever had been brought to them. Lunch had never been a conversation, but it had always been a dialogue. There was something shared on the floor of that lab, with their backs pressed to massive containers of Kaiju samples, knees brushing as they scarfed down the barely-edible rations provided for them by the Corps. It had been simple, and often times miserable, but it had been  _ enough _ , and it had grounded Hermann.

 

For a decade, Hermann had hoped Newt would come back. 

 

He’d shown up to work every morning hoping that there’d be some email, or invoice, or writing on the goddamn wall announcing that Newt had come back. He’d hoped to see Kaiju entrails decorating the lab like they were streamers. He’d hoped to hear Metallica blasting from some tiny, powerful speaker that he would immediately demand be shut off. That had never happened, though. The world never noticed the gaping hole that Newt had left. In fact, it seemed to grow despite this wound: Hermann blinked, and the PPDC had a regular Ranger program. Medals gave way to memorials, and as the rest of the world looked forward, Hermann couldn’t help but look back at a more stable time.

 

_ They’re inside my head. _

 

The words rang in Hermann’s ears. They were the only constant in his life besides the nightmares.

 

In the silence they existed in neon, coursing like molten metal through Hermann’s synapses. Some days, it was the only thing he could think about. He’d spend hours staring at an incomplete sentence, and all he could feel was the heat of Newt’s gaze on him, the pressure of his hands around his throat.

 

Newt had spared Hermann’s life.

 

The room they kept him in was as dull as every other space in the Dome. 

 

Hermann found the reinforced metal door easy to move, as the weight was nothing compared to the dread that had held him back from this visit for weeks. Now that he was present, now that Hermann was staring reality in the face, there was no terror. There was no excitement, either.

 

Seeing Newt only reopened the wound. He looked like a shadow, all hungry and overgrown and remote. He had lost weight-- his vest was torn, his shirt ripped to bits at the wrist, and his face still caked with dried blood.

 

It was like Hermann was looking at a memory of the great, mad, brilliant scientist he'd once known, as if Newt had already gone, and all that he could see was some shadowy reconstruction of the way that he had looked the last time that Hermann had laid eyes on him. 

 

The silence between them was worse than deafening -- it was empty. It held nothing. 

 

He didn't know what to say. 

 

There weren't many words in the human language that could bridge a ten-year gap. 

 

It was then that Hermann heard Newt ( or was it the Precursors?) laughing. It was dark and low and soft, it shook his chest and seemed to make the air around him crackle with electricity. For a moment, Newt seemed to be full size again.

 

“Well?” The voice asked, Newt’s eyes looking through Hermann. “What do you want?”

 

The answer was simple, and something told Hermann that the Precursors knew the answer.

 

“I drifted with you, too.” Hermann answered, voice soft but stern, an ardent attempt at contempt. “You know what I want. The only thing that I want.”

 

_ The only person I need. _

 

“Ah,” the voice said, echoing a thousand times within itself, “I do.”

 

The pause that followed felt like an eternity.

 

No, it felt like ten years.

 

It felt like ten years without dry wit or contesting opinions. It felt like ten years without a single trace of Kaiju Blue on Hermann’s notes. It felt like ten years without morning coffee, or someone to remind Hermann to turn off his desk light when he left the K-Science lab.

 

It felt like ten years without a trace of the person that Hermann had built his life around.

 

“What do you want?”

 

“The end of the world.” They answered plainly, in a tone suggesting that this truth was supposed to be obvious.

 

“We won’t let that happen.”

 

“Then we won’t let him go.”

 

Fueled by a suddenly brilliant flame of hatred, Hermann closed the distance between them, face close to Newt’s, expression severe. “I’m going to get him back, do you understand?” He asked, voice a growl, entire body tense with righteous fury, “And I’ll get him back before you can get what you want.”

 

That same laugh.

 

The heretic stepped closer to the executioner’s block.


	2. II. WE FOUGHT LOSING BATTLES BECAUSE HONOR WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN REASON.

Success had come to Hermann early in his life. While his understanding of practical people skills had always been lacking, his great mind had outshone his lack of social tact, especially further on in his life. Being responsible for the coding of the Mark I Jaegers and further the creation of an accurate Kaiju Event formula had made Hermann someone whose name carried some weight in the PPDC-- a weight that he didn’t often throw around.

 

There wasn’t a true balance of power in the PPDC after the events of the past few weeks. With Marshall Quan dead and the entire Corps shaken to its core, the flow of power had been knocked off of its axis. To some people, Hermann was the highest-ranking person in the Corps. Given his seniority and experience, it seemed to be the obvious answer.

 

Yet, after Pentecost had taken charge of the Cadets and led the charge on the Mega-Kaiju, he had become the de facto leader to most of those on the ground at the Dome. While under other circumstances, Hermann wouldn’t have bowed to the authority of a loose-cannon Ranger who held their title by technicality, he was able to scrounge up a modicum of respect-- or at least enough to dare to ask.

 

“Not a chance in hell, Gottlieb.” Jake replied, voice cutting through Hermann’s thoughts.

 

“Just ease up-- Jacob, you’re not just talking to the Precursors, you’re talking to our-- to  _ my _ friend.”

 

“If the Precursors want to keep acting up, they’ll have to keep their vessel, won’t they? Pose enough of a threat to Newt, and they’ll speak.”

 

“How can we trust them, Jacob?” Hermann asked, voice pleading, “What if they give us bad information? What-”

 

“This point isn’t up to debate, Gottlieb.” 

 

His jaw clenched, pursed lips holding back a series of retorts about their respective understandings of Kaiju behavior. Instead, Hermann shifted his grip on his cane. “And what if they won’t talk, Jake? Will you just starve him? Will you start beating him? Where do you draw the line? Newt is innocent-”

 

“Newt is  **not** innocent.” His voice was sharp and bold. It reminded Hermann of Stacker. “He is an accessory to the reopening of the breach, to the damage of those cities, to the death of my sister, to the destruction of Gipsy Avenger--” Jake stopped, catching his breath, shoulders shaking with indignation, “He’s lucky that we’ve kept him alive.”

 

Hermann was lucky, too.

 

“The Kaiju drifted with me, too, Jacob.” He said, voice as pressing as it was quivering, “I could-- I could take his place.”

 

Something shifted in Jake’s expression. Hermann could have sworn he was considering it. 

 

“It’s not worth the risk. That’s the last I want to hear about it.” Jake said, sentence punctuated by a wave of his hand. “I know he’s your friend, but right now, he’s playing for the other team. He killed a Cadet-”

 

“He didn’t kill  _ anyone _ .” Hermann protested, “He-”

 

“Enough.” 

 

Silence followed, carrying with it a looming intensity. It was a silence that spoke volumes, that dared him to try and fill it. It was a silence that Hermann knew he was far from qualified to break. He drummed his fingers on the grip of his cane, and nodded. “Very well. Good evening, Pentecost.”

 

They parted ways, and Hermann had never felt so far gone.

 

He had considered going back and talking to Newt, but there was an ugly truth that Hermann knew he had to come to terms with: no matter how many times he entered that room, he wouldn’t talk to Newt. He was under the full control of the Precursors, and it seemed that they weren’t going to allow another lapse any time soon.

 

Maybe it was better that Newt remain under their influence.

 

Maybe it hurt him less to be so far away. There was no way that he retained any consciousness anymore, not in any autonomous capacity. 

 

Maybe Hermann was fighting for a lost cause. Maybe he’d never gotten Newt back, not even for those few shining moments.

 

_ They’re inside my head. _

 

They were in Hermann’s head, too. 

 

They were in his nightmares. They were in the cold sweats that woke Hermann up, they were the ones that made every inch of his body shake, that made the shadows of late night jump out at him. They were the reason that he still flinched at the sound of slamming doors and still plugged variables into his Kaiju Event formula every night.

 

The nightmares were different when Hermann went to bed that night. The Precursors had a new face, now. A familiar one, one whose smile had lit up the K-Science lab during innumerable late nights. They had the technicolor tattoos that clashed with the sounds of their shrill and jeering voices. 

 

When Hermann woke up that night, he could barely breathe. 

 

So this was how Atlas felt, carrying the weight of the world.


	3. III. INTERLUDE FROM THE HANGED MAN.

It’s chaos and it’s crime,

 

It’s searing metal and burning inferno,

 

It’s unending, and it’s unafraid.

 

The Heretic is somewhere in there, lost in the midst of it all. 

 

He sees everything that’s happening, and he’s screaming himself hoarse. 

 

He reaches through the noise, but his voice melts into the entropy.

 

Is he dying?

 

They won’t let him die.

 

Reality comes in slices, like a camera whose shutter is set too slow.

 

It’s mostly empty.

 

The door opens, and it’s either meal or madness. 

 

This continues.

 

Another constant.

 

And then the Cause arrives and something is finally clear and the voices aren’t the loudest thing The Heretic hears and His face is the so goddamn clear and The Heretic feels like he can make it just a little longer and he knows that they will always shout louder than him but maybe if he just pushes harder and believes bigger and hopes greater then maybe it’ll make it out but it doesn’t 

 

And the Cause is leaving and the door is closing.

 

And it is the same.

 

And the voices are loud again.

 

And the world is so far away.

 

He falls back into line.

 

_ They’re inside his head. _


	4. IV. WE RAN WITH BARE FEET BECAUSE THE BURNING GROUND REMINDED US WE WERE ALIVE.

Through either lack of judgement or application of thoughtful strategy on behalf of the Corps, Hermann was invited to the next interrogation. He’d almost said no--  _ almost _ .

 

Newt looked no better for wear than before.

 

His shirt was looser on him, drenched in sweat and lit harshly by the single bulb at the top of the room. His facial hair had grown from stubble to shadow to shag, and his hair’s wild flair was no longer tamed by carefully applied gel. Newt was uncivilized and untamed, and it seemed that the only things stopping him from clawing out his own eyes were his shackles.

 

His prison kept him alive, but barely.

 

The room felt empty.

 

Jake didn’t conduct the interrogation-- the story went that a few days ago he’d snapped and slapped Newt across the face.

 

In his place was an unidentifiable ranking officer with short-cropped hair and a shorter-cropped attitude. They had the crisp and polished edges that one came to expect from the decorum and ferocity of the Corps, their identity boiled down to white-knuckled fists and harshly spoken words.

 

It felt like it went on forever. Hermann watched, resigned and removed, standing by the holding room’s door. 

 

To the officer’s credit, they put up a strong fight. They never bargained, but they made it clear what they wanted-- to be left alone. It was a simple request. There were infinite planets in infinite solar systems in a universe that was both unending and constantly expanding, yet this was the one they wanted. 

 

Yet Newt was the one they took. 

 

The two of them had first met almost thirty years previous. Newt was a wiry kid who had no more control over his limbs than he had over the weather. He had a radiant smile, but every word that came out of his mouth had sounded like nails on a chalkboard. He was the loose cannon, the one that stirred up chaos and questioned all the rules, but it had fit him.

 

It had fit  _ them _ . 

 

What occupied Newt now was not chaos. It was hostility, it was greed, it was the kind of hubris that melted wax and lost wars. This wasn’t chaos, it was the violent and unchecked hunger for power and destruction. This cannon was not loose, it was tethered tightly to the front of a warship that defied the laws of human understanding.

 

Hermann couldn’t stay the course of the interrogation. 


	5. V. A HERO RETURNED HOME FROM VICTORY TO FIND HIS KINGDOM BURNING.

Every day, it’s more of the same. Every day, they walk into the holding room and ask Newt the same thing-- Hermann’s stopped asking if they’ve started hitting him again. 

 

Something in him knows they never stopped.

 

Newt becomes a martyr on a hot Summer day.

 

There are about seven different accounts of what happened. Some say that he was gradually poisoned in an attempt to get the Precursors to talk. Some say that he spoke up to the wrong officer, and they snapped. Some even say that he had escaped his restraints, and was taken out before he could get any volatile information to the Precursors.

 

Hermann chooses to believe that Newt’s heart just gave in.

 

Newt doesn’t leave behind a will. He’d always joked that he’d be the first of them to die.

 

He didn’t seem to have prepared to be so right, so soon.

  
  
  
  


Hermann wondered what Newt might have requested in his will.

 

He wondered a lot.

 

No wonder could have prepared Hermann for the dread-inducing sight Newt’s face in an open coffin. 

 

When the memorial service was done, Hermann finally visited Alice.

 

It took him twenty minutes to cut off the system keeping her alive, and thirty more for her to die.

 

With Alice destroyed and Newt dead, all of the Precursors’ contact with Earth was lost. 

 

Ten, twenty, thirty years passed, and the world was safe.

 

Hermann would die as he lived: slowly and in his lab. All that remained to remind the world of the PPDC and its Jaegers were cabinets of medals all around the world, given to people such as Hermann in the hope that their glamour would distract him from the price he’d paid for humanity’s victory.

 

The UN would secure Hermann and many of the other ranking officers at the Corps a salary to continue their work in private practice.

 

Hermann spent the rest of his life well-funded, well-respected, and well-known.

 

He would never marry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway i hope you suffered half as much as i did. 
> 
> @kaijufucker666 on twitter, @destinae on tumblr.


End file.
